Bloggers Mull Legal Action Against Righthaven

Clayton Cramer

Bloggers who paid thousands of dollars each to settle copyright-infringement allegations with Righthaven were mulling their legal options Wednesday, a day after a federal judge said the copyright troll had no legal standing to bring that kind of lawsuits.

“We’re thinking seriously about what to do,” Clayton Cramer, the former operator of the now-defunct Armedcitizen.net, said in a telephone interview.

More than 100 owners of blogs and other sites have settled with Righthaven for undisclosed sums, and Cramer wants his money back. Righthaven has lodged more than 300 lawsuits across the nation in a courthouse barrage that might not have been legal.

Cramer settled for an undisclosed sum with Righthaven last year to end allegations his gun-rights site committed copyright infringement for running an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal article. The agreements prohibit either party from disclosing the settlement terms, but Righthaven’s suit initially sought $75,000 in damages

“That made their threat demanding $75,000 a credible threat, so we settled,” Clayton said.

Cramer’s reaction was in response to a Nevada federal judge’s Tuesday decision that Righthaven did not have standing to bring a copyright lawsuit against the Democratic Underground blog for allegedly pilfering four paragraphs from a 34-paragraph story published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media.

Whether the settled cases can be reopened, or whether there are other legal options, is being examined by counsel of some of the Righthaven defendants who settled.

“This is a situation that I have to admit I’ve never before confronted in my career, where a party so clearly did not have standing to bring a case, yet it had settled with so many people,” Marc Randazza, a Miami attorney who represented about a dozen litigants who settled, said in a telephone interview.

He mentioned the idea of a class action brought by the settlers against Righthaven, and said he was discussing the situation with his clients.

He said the bloggers who settled were guilty of infringement. “They can do what they want to do,” he said in a telephone interview.

Righthaven and Stephens Media have altered their licensing arrangement in a bid to obtain legal standing, Gibson said. The agreement has always granted each side a 50 percent stake in settlements and verdicts.

The altered arrangement, however, has not been tested in court. Hunt, however, labeled the licensing changes “cosmetic,” but declined to rule if the new agreement gives Righthaven the right to sue.

“As of today, there should be no question whether Righthaven has standing,” Gibson said.

Gibson noted that rights holders have three years to file a lawsuit from the time the infringement occurs — meaning the bloggers who settled might be sued again if their settlements or lawsuits are vacated.

“The statute of limitations,” he said, “is three years for copyright infringement.”